英语词汇with tail between legs的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

with tail between legs. When the expression was figuratively applied no one knows, but it must have been long ago, for as early as 1400 writers have described frightened dogs with their tails between their legs. The attitude of scared, cowardly dogs was transferred to any thoroughly cowed and abased person who stands back with tail between legs. The word coward is ulti- mately from the Latin cauda, “tail”; it may be an allusion to an animal cowering with its tail between its legs or “turning tail” and running.

词汇	with tail between legs
词源	with tail between legs. When the expression was figuratively applied no one knows, but it must have been long ago, for as early as 1400 writers have described frightened dogs with their tails between their legs. The attitude of scared, cowardly dogs was transferred to any thoroughly cowed and abased person who stands back with tail between legs. The word coward is ulti- mately from the Latin cauda, “tail”; it may be an allusion to an animal cowering with its tail between its legs or “turning tail” and running.
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